Love Live! Sunshine - Episode 12 Discussion / Poll

[outlaw97]

Originally Posted by Benigmatica

I wonder if there would be another Love Live! competition should Aqours won't win the first time around? Yes, it'll be like the original series, but I want them to win after taking their own path!

I forget if they touched upon this in the movie, but I was under the impression that Love Live is an annual tournament. If it is, then they get only one chance at this, since the 3rd Years will be graduating.

EDIT: I forgot that there were multiple Love Lives even in the original series, and it would make sense to have multiple tournaments as the number of teams exploded. So consider my previous point above moot.

This is one of the reasons why Sunshine is interesting on a meta level - Love Live was the first of its kind, but it's Sunshine that will really set the tone and template for subsequent entries in the franchise. I have no doubt they'll "win" Love Live, much like how no one doubts whether the main team will win the Nationals in other sports anime. It's just a matter of when, and how they eventually get there that gives it nuance.

[novalysis]

Originally Posted by outlaw97

I forget if they touched upon this in the movie, but I was under the impression that Love Live is an annual tournament. If it is, then they get only one chance at this, since the 3rd Years will be graduating.

I wonder where the impression that Love Live reverted to an annual tournament came from. Because, mind you there are mentions that teams have attended multiple Love Lives, which seems to more likely support the idea that Love Live is a twice yearly affair, just as it had been when Muse was active.

In-fact, given that the anime launched so early in Aqours life-cycle, I'd dare say that it's very likely there would be two tournaments per year, to take advantage of the opportunity to run more seasons for Love Live Sunshine rather than just two seasons.

[Kakurin]

Originally Posted by novalysis

support the idea that Love Live is a twice yearly affair, just as it had been when Muse was active.

I would be careful trying to derive something out of that. It was established that they were surprised by the big success of the first Love Live so that they decided to hold another one expanding it in scope with preliminaries etc. It was not planned as a twice-a-year thing.

[novalysis]

Originally Posted by Kakurin-san

I would be careful trying to derive something out of that. It was established that they were surprised by the big success of the first Love Live so that they decided to hold another one expanding it in scope with preliminaries etc. It was not planned as a twice-a-year thing.

Do remember Love Live became even more popular and successful since that time. The number of groups participating has increased ten fold, audience numbers are soaring, and the Sport of School Idols are still gaining a growing following. So, I think that the idea that Love Live reverted back to an annual affair isn't necessarily a given. If the organizers knew they could hold Love Live twice a year, and audience bases kept growing, then I'm not sure why won't the organizers keep it at twice a year.

In other words, it is just at least as equally plausible that Love Live has settled into a twice a year affair as Love Live having reverted back to an annual affair. There needs to be positive arguments why Love Live has reverted back to an annual affair, other than it began as an annual affair and became a twice yearly affair because of initial success; since Love Live has simply gotten even more successful then.

[judasmartel]

Originally Posted by outlaw97

I have no doubt they'll "win" Love Live, much like how no one doubts whether the main team will win the Nationals in other sports anime. It's just a matter of when, and how they eventually get there that gives it nuance.

Kind of OT, but in the early days, hero teams in sports anime don't necessarily win the National Tournament. Shohoku won an upset against the #1 HS team in Japan but lost to Aiwa ON THE SAME DAY. They were exhausted and unable to rest, but they gave it their all despite this, just came up short. After the National tournament, Shohoku ended up being the #5 HS team in Japan, and Sakuragi would have made it to the Japanese national team had his back injury healed sooner, instead he was replaced by Rukawa.

I think it's only until lately that the hero team wins the National Tournament because everyone loves a winner. Prince of Tennis and Eyeshield 21 are quite good with this, especially because some of the opponent teams (individual players or the whole team) are even more popular than the hero team.

Time will tell if Seirin and Karasuno will win their respective National Tournament, but the fans are highly optimistic that they will, and I think it's the same with Aqours. I myself am confident that Aqours will win it all, but I would be happy for them already if they at least make it to the final round of Love Live, especially because they are competing with 10x more idol groups than before, so definitely the stakes are higher.

[Jimmy C]

Originally Posted by novalysis

There needs to be positive arguments why Love Live has reverted back to an annual affair, other than it began as an annual affair and became a twice yearly affair because of initial success; since Love Live has simply gotten even more successful then.

The thing is this, imagine organizing a competition for over seven thousand teams across the nation, now do it twice, every year. It's crazy.
And you can't even say teams can only compete in one of the two events, not both. Because Aquors is competing in the first event already. And ep13 cannot be the finals, because Aquors isn't good enough yet to win.
I can see there being a lot of preliminaries, because it'll take time to eliminate the contestants down to a number that can fit a two hour program for the finals.

[Benigmatica]

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

The thing is this, imagine organizing a competition for over seven thousand teams across the nation, now do it twice, every year. It's crazy.

Actually, Japanese Highschool Baseball holds two tournaments every year. Therefore, it isn't crazy for the committee to pull two school idol competitions in a single academic year.

[novalysis]

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

The thing is this, imagine organizing a competition for over seven thousand teams across the nation, now do it twice, every year. It's crazy.
And you can't even say teams can only compete in one of the two events, not both. Because Aquors is competing in the first event already. And ep13 cannot be the finals, because Aquors isn't good enough yet to win.
I can see there being a lot of preliminaries, because it'll take time to eliminate the contestants down to a number that can fit a two hour program for the finals.

That's a fair enough point, and the argument I was looking for. We need to know more about the structure of the modern competition, and it's very plausible there isn't just one qualifying round, but multiple stages including elimination rounds. After all, Aqours wasn't actually participating in the Kanto regional, but Izu regional right? In-fact, I won't be surprised if the Kanto round has been eliminated in favor of breaking the Tokyo bracket into smaller divisions, with the bracket where Akihabara (home to UTX Tokyo and Otonokizaka) is in being considered the most difficult "Group of Death" bracket to get through, because of the density of schools that have been participating in Love Live since its very inception.

I wonder why hasn't the anime revealed the full structure of the competition yet. It seems as if the anime is trying to evade that very topic, by not telling us viewers how does the Qualifier Aqours just won fit in the scheme of things? Is the tournament multi-round, with multiple qualifying rounds, quarters and semis before a group can reach the Finals? Because right now, all we know is that there's a first Qualifying round and a finals. I was actually hoping in Episode 10, that Dia would explain to the team the current structure of the competition, and just how on earth the organizers would plan on whittling down 7000 teams to possibly around 5-10 team for the finals.

And then, if that's the case simply reaching the finals as a team formed just a few months ago would be considered a major triumph, especially if you were from a small semi-rural location like a town on the very edge of a minor city called Numazu..... And the qualifying round that Aqours just got through is actually of a lower difficulty than the Tokyo event because the Tokyo event consist of 30 out of the top 100 teams nation-wide. And there are five qualifying spots in Aqours region alone, as opposed to one for all of Kanto during Muse existence.

If that's the case, Chika's Zero to One mantra is a VERY VERY healthy mantra for a newly formed team to manage expectations in a very crowded field. Because, in this environment, if you are considered a "top school", simply showing up in the Finals after making through possibly more than two round and a field of 7000 teams counts. In-fact, many would tell Chika that simply getting her club into the finals and keeping them there and mounting good challenges for the title till Chika graduates, means that Ruby/Hanamaru/Yohane and their juniors are in prime position to actually win. Getting that club into the very 2 hour show itself, on the very first try, immediately elevates her above Honoka in terms of the significance of her feat - since by this stage, most people involve in the School Idol world would consider that entering the Final 2 hour show as a newly formed club in modern Love Live seems impossible. I won't be surprised if it's revealed in second season that no School ever (besides the first Love Live) has entered the true Love Live Finals in the very same year that an Idol club was founded in that School - ever, with the exception of the first two competitions. By getting her club to the finals, Chika has accomplished a feat many think impossible - just performing in Akiba Dome within a year of formation will be enough to immortalize her and her team in the School Idol sport. Of course, cynics would argue that if Chika launched Aqours in Tokyo, her club would have been a slaughtered in the very first round. By launching in Numazu, outside Tokyo, Chika guaranteed that she was going to face competition below the elite big city groups.

Look my stance has never been that the last episode of this season is going to be the finals. I have already indicated, I hope quite clearly in what I want in the second season, that I am already convinced that the Finals or additional rounds between the regional and the finals is going to be the subject of the entire second season. The reason why I suggested that there may well be two competitions per year, is that I think that Sunshine might not be getting just two seasons, but possibly 3-4 one cour seasons, because of just how early the show has been launched into Aqours life cycle compared the OG. Because if not, we are going to have to wait a long time for the second season to come out. Nor my stance has been "I want Aqours to win the finals and I think they can do it." My stance of how I think Aqours will fare in this specific competition simply been: I want more sports rivals, and I think Aqours is going to make it to the finals in their first attempt (which we will be told is an incredible feat in itself), overtake Saint Snow but get crushed by a far more established group that sees the same vision that Chika gave Aqours this episode.

And given Japanese high school baseball is a twice yearly affair despite games being far, far longer, numbers of teams nor multiple rounds necessarily rules out the possibility that Modern Love Live also happens twice a year, even though there are multiple rounds in each tournament.

[Jimmy C]

Originally Posted by novalysis

I wonder why hasn't the anime revealed the full structure of the competition yet.

Could be because it's as simple as it used to be, Preliminaries -> Finals. Only that there are so many preliminary rounds, they have to be spread across several weeks, or months. I hope this is their excuse for putting off the finals to the next season. As I said, Aquors has no chance of winning if the finals is ep13, but it would be weird if it was months after the preliminaries that S2 could last.

And there are five qualifying spots in Aqours region alone, as opposed to one for all of Kanto during Muse existence.

That wasn't just the Aquors region. Those were the winners of all the preliminaries, not just the one Aquors was in. If the preliminaries are spread over different days, those were only the ones on that date.

And given Japanese high school baseball is a twice yearly affair despite games being far, far longer, numbers of teams nor multiple rounds necessarily rules out the possibility that Modern Love Live also happens twice a year, even though there are multiple rounds in each tournament.

I can accept there being two LL's a year then. However, it seems to be getting rather late in the year for them already. If the finals is after the School Open House in September, it's the last LL this year already.

[novalysis]

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

That wasn't just the Aquors region. Those were the winners of all the preliminaries, not just the one Aquors was in. If the preliminaries are spread over different days, those were only the ones on that date.

.

The problem with this theory, is that Saint Snow was stated explicitly to have taken First place in the Hokkaido Preliminaries, which occurred before the preliminaries Aqours attended.

This means that those five groups were almost certainly winners in Aqours specific region, or on all preliminaries occurring on that particular day. With 7000 groups at least participating in the preliminaries, I am more inclined to believe that Aqours was competing in the Shizouka Prefecture preliminaries, since Saint Snow did not show up on that list. Here's the interesting thing: there was only one qualifying spot for Tokyo. In the case of Sunshine, there seems to be five qualifying spots per regional.

It means that either there are two rounds (as it was during Muse time), but the final round is much longer or takes place across multiple days. Or this is just the first preliminary qualifiers, and there are additional rounds - I am incline to believe that there will be additional rounds, and we will get a briefing on the road to the Akiba Dome early in Second Season or at the end of Episode 13. And if there are additional rounds, then Akiba Dome is pushed back to next season. For all we know, we might not even hit October by the end of the Second Season - I can see it happening. Aren't they in early August anyway by Episode 12?

Even if the final round is in September after the Open House, I dare say there's still room to run a November - March Winter edition competition, depending on the resources Love Live has. I suspect though it's well within the organizers capabilities - they managed to pull it off back when the School Idol sport had less of a following.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by outlaw97

This is one of the reasons why Sunshine is interesting on a meta level - Love Live was the first of its kind, but it's Sunshine that will really set the tone and template for subsequent entries in the franchise.

An interesting statement. I'm curious what, precisely, you mean by it. What would this "setting the tone and template" entail, in practical concrete terms?

Are you talking about something like the masked men of Gundam, popularized by Char Aznable and a commonality stretching through most major TV Gundam shows (to the best of my knowledge, anyway)?

If so, what do you see being the equivalent of that in Love Live?

A few possibilities pop to mind for me:

1. Every main cast LL group will have 9 members.
2. Every main cast LL group will have a leader that's at least vaguely genki girl.
3. Every main cast LL group will involve conflict between group leader and the Student Council President.
4. Every main rival group will be far fewer in numbers than the main cast group.

Is any of this what you're thinking of?

[novalysis]

5. Every main cast LL group will go through Umi's crazy training regime once
6. Every LL group will be a new group founded from scratch by a Second year inspired by the previous leader of the last generation of Love Live Idols.
7. Every LL composer in-anime will be a pianist.
8. There will always be a blonde half-Japanese among the third years.
9. There will always be a slot reserved for a "Hanayo" and a "Rin" analog among the first years. Ruby and Hanamaru currently holds that slot.
10. The rival group would always come from a UTX school.
11. The leader of each main cast LL Group will always be anointed as the spiritual successor of the last by a certain episode during the first season, by a white feather falling down from the heavens.
12. There will always be a pilgrimage made to the school of the last LL main cast group at one point in the first season.
13. Every girl after Honoka is not a true Genki Girl, but rather another personality type acting like a Genki Girl deliberately or in homage to the public persona of their inspiration, just like Chika.
14. Every main cast LL Group will somehow have three members in every single year within the group.
15. Men will never exist on screen in LL.
16. Every new main cast LL group will be inspired by the last main cast LL group, and will have to learn that imitating their inspiration is the wrong way to go.

[Triple_R]

With all due respect, novalysis, I hope not. That would be seriously overdoing it, in my opinion.

A few common strands might be nice, but this much would seem totally suffocating to me. And do you really think that every future lead girl should follow the exact same path that Chika did?

[novalysis]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

With all due respect, novalysis, I hope not. That would be seriously overdoing it, in my opinion.

A few common strands might be nice, but this much would seem totally suffocating to me. And do you really think that every future lead girl should follow the exact same path that Chika did?

It's JOKE!

No seriously. If the sequel to Sunshine goes down this route, we can very ironically and safely label such a sequel a "Sunshine Ripoff". And considering how some people think that Sunshine was a ripoff of the original..... that would be some rich irony indeed.

Long Edit: Because I realized I didn't answer the second part of Triple R's post about future lead girls in the initial reply.

But I have a suspicion that every lead-girl will follow a path that parallels Chika in many ways given what the premise of "start my own Idol club" entails, UNLESS the premise is switched such that said girl is not founding a club/Idol Group, but is either joining an already established club, or has just inherited the leadership of an already established club. Because any girl who is inspired to form an Idol group from scratch will run into similar obstacles Chika did, and likely learn similar lessons, and if each main girl sees the last as her main inspiration, then certain public personas will likely pass down from one generation to another as the ideal mask the leader ought to wear. And if Aqours ever becomes as big as Muse, then then I suspect Chika's public stage persona would be that of a Genki Girl - even if we the audience and the rest of Aqours knows it is as much of an act as Yohane is for Yoshiko. However, if future Love Lives dare to break with the premise of the main girl of the last generation inspiring the main girl of the next generation after her to start her own idol-group, that would immediately foreclose to that main girl the path Chika took because the premise cannot support that path to begin with.

So, no, I personally don't think every future lead girl should follow the path Chika took. But I think it's highly likely that as long as Future Love Live series retain the initial premise of "second year is inspired to start an idol group", and if the source of the inspiration happens to be the leader of the previous generation, that a path similar to Chika would be the result.

Personally, I would like to see more variation in the premise itself in future Love-Lives. For example, a second year inherits a Light Music Club and decides to retool her club to enter Love Live for the first time. Or due to budget cuts from shrinking enrollment or previous lack of achievement, a Light Music club and a dance club decides to pool resources together and enter Love Live as a new combined club, in hopes of finding success. Or a first year main girl who believes in the Saint Snow ideology that winning is everything and was in an idol group in Middle School joins a well renowned High School Idol club with a good track record of usually reaching the finals, only to learn the lesson that Sunshine first introduced: the journey is more important than the destination and the very act of shining is valuable in itself. Or a Middle Schooler decides to start an Idol Club in hopes of getting School Idol experience before entering High School, in admiration of her successful School Idol elder sister. Said elder sister happens to be inspired by School Idols of the last Love Live series, and was implied to have undergone a path similar to Chika. But the Middle Schooler is the real protagonist, and because her elder sister's real personality is very different from the Genki public personality her elder sister adopts, the Middle Schooler forges a very different path instead.

Any of these scenarios immediately ensures that the path the main girl takes will be radically different from both Chika or Honoka. However, given that many Gundams tend to reuse the same plot of super-prototypes being stolen by a hostile nation and teenage pilot saves the last super-prototype from being stolen, my fear is that future Love Live sequels will not change starting premises. And if they are not going to change starting premises, than scenarios 5-16 suddenly become plausible pitfalls the writers could potentially fall into, and not jokes.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by novalysis

It's JOKE!

Well-played.

In all seriousness, I really like your Number 8. That sort of thing would be really close to the masked men of Gundam.

Edit: Here's an idea I've played with - What if the next main girl is a big fan of school idols in general ? As in, she loves multiple groups (of which Aqours would certainly be one, and probably the main one, just to be fair to Sunshine). She'd be a "student of the game", in a sense, and have a vast knowledge of the history of school idols. She'd still choose her own path, of course, and she wouldn't copy any group, but she'd be a lover of the whole world of school idols in a way that neither Honoka or Chika really were, at least not initially.

Anyway, just an idea.

[Jimmy C]

Originally Posted by novalysis

I am more inclined to believe that Aqours was competing in the Shizouka Prefecture preliminaries, since Saint Snow did not show up on that list.

Saint Snow not showing up on that list does not invalidate the possibility that it only listed the results of a particular day's prelims. That list could have been longer than 5 names. If you look carefully, you can see that they cut away from the list just before the next item could have appeared, if there was one.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Every main cast LL group will have 9 members.

9 is an interesting number, it's a result of having three members from each grade of the high school. Three I think is significant, because it's the minimum that will push the girls out of being a "couple" and have a "dangler" that can have more interactions with girls in the other grades.
If they went to 12, it would be an extremely dynamic group capable of becoming halves, thirds, quarters and pairs while performing. But that might be too many people.

Incidentally, Aquors could have gotten a tenth member if Chika had been more alert. In ep1, You mentioned that one of their classmates already got shot down trying to form an Idol Club. On rewatching and catching this, I'm amused Chika didn't ask for her name and go rope her in after they got off the boat.

Every main rival group will be far fewer in numbers than the main cast group.

The rival group only gets one fully animated performance, so the fewer people, the easier.

Originally Posted by novalysis

There will always be a slot reserved for a "Hanayo" and a "Rin" among the first years. Ruby and Hanamaru currently holds that slot.

Not exactly what you were talking about, but have you noticed that they seem to have cut some corners with the Aquors character designs? 5 of them have significant common elements. Yoshiko, Riko and Dia are one group. Hanamaru and You are another, Mari looks similar to them but the effect is broken by her different hairstyle. Ruby, Chika and Kanan are the only fully unique designs. It gives me a weird feeling sometimes.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

9 is an interesting number, it's a result of having three members from each grade of the high school. Three I think is significant, because it's the minimum that will push the girls out of being a "couple" and have a "dangler" that can have more interactions with girls in the other grades.

Agreed. 9 is a very good number. Part of me would like to see Love Live Version 3.0 break away from it just to be different, but I can also see the real positives to sticking with 9.

In addition to your own reasons, it allows for the 3 3-member subunits tradition to continue. 9 also brings good character diversity, and a good number of characters to bounce off of each other in a variety of interesting one-to-one and trio relationships.

And one of the main reasons I got into Love Live a lot more than I did iM@S is that I just found iM@S cast size too big. It made character development/focus feel really fragmented to me. When it comes to hitting a sweet spot between "enough characters to offer good character diversity" and "cast small enough so that the group doesn't feel bloated", I'd put the sweet spot as being anywhere between 7 and 10.

The rival group only gets one fully animated performance, so the fewer people, the easier.

I'm fine with the rival group being small in numbers. However, I'll admit I prefer 3 to 2.

Not exactly what you were talking about, but have you noticed that they seem to have cut some corners with the Aquors character designs? 5 of them have significant common elements. Yoshiko, Riko and Dia are one group. Hanamaru and You are another, Mari looks similar to them but the effect is broken by her different hairstyle. Ruby, Chika and Kanan are the only fully unique designs. It gives me a weird feeling sometimes.

Good points, but hair color/hair accessory/eye color differences help here.

Dia and Yoshiko look pretty similar at a basic level. Which is why I'm glad their personalities are very different from each other.

[novalysis]

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

.

Incidentally, Aquors could have gotten a tenth member if Chika had been more alert. In ep1, You mentioned that one of their classmates already got shot down trying to form an Idol Club. On rewatching and catching this, I'm amused Chika didn't ask for her name and go rope her in after they got off the boat.

I won't be surprised that, during Episode 11, when the possibility of finding a replacement for Riko was broached, that it was that poor unknown student that could have served as a stand in, and was what those who proposed that solution had in mind.

Which makes me wonder: why didn't that classmate who was shot down joined once Aqours was formed and gained approval from none other than the director herself? Or did Dia scared that poor student away, when she listed down all the things that needed to be done to set up an Idol Club that can compete in Love Live? I suspect the writers just threw that small point in and forgot about it.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Edit: Here's an idea I've played with - What if the next main girl is a big fan of school idols in general ? As in, she loves multiple groups (of which Aqours would certainly be one, and probably the main one, just to be fair to Sunshine). She'd be a "student of the game", in a sense, and have a vast knowledge of the history of school idols. She'd still choose her own path, of course, and she wouldn't copy any group, but she'd be a lover of the whole world of school idols in a way that neither Honoka or Chika really were, at least not initially.

That actually sounds like Hanayo. And to another extent, Dia, because she is essentially Aqours main resource into the state of "the game" of School Idols, and their central source of intelligence on the landscape facing Aqours. Just remove Dia's Muse worship, and she fits the bill perfectly. Indeed, one could argue that when Nico tried to first form a School Idol group, that description fit Nico to a T. So if anything, such a girl probably has to avoid the pitfall Nico fell into, if she formed her own club from scratch as Chika tried to do. If she was joining a not so successful School Idol club already established however (due to the fact that the initial founder did not have the knowledge to navigate the School Idol competition very well, and so while their performances were decent, it was never sufficiently exceptional enough to allow said group to break past qualifiers), her knowledge might just be able to transform that club from mediocrity to getting into the finals.

[Requiem-x]

Originally Posted by novalysis

5. Every main cast LL group will go through Umi's crazy training regime once
6. Every LL group will be a new group founded from scratch by a Second year inspired by the previous leader of the last generation of Love Live Idols.
7. Every LL composer in-anime will be a pianist.
8. There will always be a blonde half-Japanese among the third years.
9. There will always be a slot reserved for a "Hanayo" and a "Rin" among the first years. Ruby and Hanamaru currently holds that slot.
10. The rival group would always come from a UTX school.
11. The leader of each main cast LL Group will always be anointed as the spiritual successor of the last by a certain episode during the first season, by a white feather falling down from the heavens.
12. There will always be a pilgrimage made to the school of the last LL main cast group at one point in the first season.
13. Every girl after Honoka is not a true Genki Girl, but rather another personality type acting like a Genki Girl deliberately or in homage to the public persona of their inspiration, just like Chika.
14. Every main cast LL Group will somehow have three members in every single year within the group.
15. Men will never exist on screen in LL.
16. Every new main cast LL group will be inspired by the last main cast LL group, and will have to learn that imitating their inspiration is the wrong way to go.

6. Pretty much HAS to be that way. First years are the young starters and third years are destined for drama because of leaving school soon.
7. And a (seemingly) elegant redhead, apparently.
8. Feels a bit too general. If it weren't for the third years part, this would apply to all harems ever
9. First years seem to be the lighthearted crew, so this makes sense.
10. But Saint Snow isn't... or are they?
11. Chika has no magic powers so far, though, so I feel this would be a little too much. Each leader should succession according to her personality and overall tone of the group, I believe.
12. I actually wouldn't mind a pilgrimage to Aqours' territory, since you probably won't be able to pull off another ghost move (again, Chika has no magic).
13. But if you're being like Chika, then you're not a genki girl.
14. This one is already true, and its working pretty well so far.
15. Well, duh.
16. You pretty much have to add this, or you won't have much of an appealing group.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by novalysis

Personally, I would like to see more variation in the premise itself in future Love-Lives. For example, a second year inherits a Light Music Club and decides to retool her club to enter Love Live for the first time.

If Love Live Version 3.0 goes this route, I want the lead girl's name to be Yui or Ui.

Or due to budget cuts from shrinking enrollment or previous lack of achievement, a Light Music club and a dance club decides to pool resources together and enter Love Live as a new combined club, in hopes of finding success. Or a first year main girl who believes in the Saint Snow ideology that winning is everything and was in an idol group in Middle School joins a well renowned High School Idol club with a good track record of usually reaching the finals, only to learn the lesson that Sunshine first introduced: the journey is more important than the destination and the very act of shining is valuable in itself. Or a Middle Schooler decides to start an Idol Club in hopes of getting School Idol experience before entering High School, in admiration of her successful School Idol elder sister. Said elder sister happens to be inspired by School Idols of the last Love Live series, and was implied to have undergone a path similar to Chika. But the Middle Schooler is the real protagonist, and because her elder sister's real personality is very different from the Genki public personality her elder sister adopts, the Middle Schooler forges a very different path instead.

Some very interesting ideas here. I probably like your Light Music-to-Idol group idea the most.

Originally Posted by novalysis

That actually sounds like Hanayo. And to another extent, Dia, because she is essentially Aqours main resource into the state of "the game" of School Idols, and their central source of intelligence on the landscape facing Aqours. Just remove Dia's Muse worship, and she fits the bill perfectly. Indeed, one could argue that when Nico tried to first form a School Idol group, that description fit Nico to a T. So if anything, such a girl probably has to avoid the pitfall Nico fell into, if she formed her own club from scratch as Chika tried to do. If she was joining a not so successful School Idol club already established however (due to the fact that the initial founder did not have the knowledge to navigate the School Idol competition very well, and so while their performances were decent, it was never sufficiently exceptional enough to allow said group to break past qualifiers), her knowledge might just be able to transform that club from mediocrity to getting into the finals.

Right. Similar to my own thoughts. This type of lead girl might have to overcome her own perfectionism, which could make a good character arc.

Or, alternatively, I was thinking of someone very much like Freyja Wion, the character currently in my avatar. I think most Love Live fans would like Macross Delta a lot, by the way.